The Love Poems Are No Longer Mine Poem by Shalom Freedman

THE LOVE POEMS ARE NO LONGER MINE

The love poems are no longer mine
The feelings of youth cannot be again
So much of the best of life
Will never be again

I still have a mind
And feeling
And love in a different way
Not the love of romance
But deeper steadier family and friend loves

But the passion of joy
The ecstasy and pain of wild longing
Are not mine

Old and calm and quiet
Or troubled in many ways
But not that passion not that joy not that life

We live once
And we die once
And in our own lifetimes too
There are dyings of different kinds

Old as I am deep as I am tired as I am
With all that I am
I cannot be what I was
And will never be again.